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Climate change - man made?

Scientific discovery and discussion

Climate change - man made?

True
46
58%
False
20
25%
Not sure
14
18%
 
Total votes: 80

MuddyBoots
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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709587

Postby MuddyBoots » February 3rd, 2025, 9:42 pm

hiriskpaul wrote: Science isn't a voting game. About one-in-five U.S. adults reject the basic idea that life on Earth has evolved at all. But the science is settled.

But the statement 'the science is settled' is just another way of saying that a consensus, or large majority of biologists agree that evolution is true in their professional opinion.

So although reality itself isn't a matter of voting, our body of scientific knowledge about it is.

hiriskpaul
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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709589

Postby hiriskpaul » February 3rd, 2025, 10:13 pm

Lootman wrote:
hiriskpaul wrote:Science isn't a voting game. About one-in-five U.S. adults reject the basic idea that life on Earth has evolved at all. But the science is settled.

There might be some level of consensus about how the climate is evolving. But less so about how much that is due to man-made acts versus other factors. About how rapidly it is changing. And most certainly about what if anything we should do about that.

20% of red-state evangelists believing that humans did not evolve from primates is one thing. 42% of educated, intelligent and informed Lemons having serous doubts about the propaganda that folks like mtk62 are peddling is quite another.

Not really. The basic science is settled. We observe warming. The warming is caused by increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. The CO2 is increasing due to the burning of fossil fuels. All settled, despite what lemons or the likes of Trump think or don't think. There are areas of uncertainty of course, as there is with evolution. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet for example will decrease salinity in the Northern Atlantic. What will that do to ocean currents? Some say it may result in cooling in the North Atlantic rather than warming. Definitely not settled science.

odysseus2000
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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709597

Postby odysseus2000 » February 3rd, 2025, 11:58 pm

hiriskpaul wrote:
Lootman wrote:There might be some level of consensus about how the climate is evolving. But less so about how much that is due to man-made acts versus other factors. About how rapidly it is changing. And most certainly about what if anything we should do about that.

20% of red-state evangelists believing that humans did not evolve from primates is one thing. 42% of educated, intelligent and informed Lemons having serous doubts about the propaganda that folks like mtk62 are peddling is quite another.

Not really. The basic science is settled. We observe warming. The warming is caused by increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. The CO2 is increasing due to the burning of fossil fuels. All settled, despite what lemons or the likes of Trump think or don't think. There are areas of uncertainty of course, as there is with evolution. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet for example will decrease salinity in the Northern Atlantic. What will that do to ocean currents? Some say it may result in cooling in the North Atlantic rather than warming. Definitely not settled science.


All we really have is an experimental fact that we are releasing co2 into the atmosphere and that measurements of temperature show low altitude warming & high altitude cooling as expected for a greenhouse effect, along with simulations that explain the observed warming & correlate this with measured co2. This is good, but are there other factors that might be important that we are not considering and if not are the putative factors correct with regard to what will be the effect of feedback such as more water vapor if the predicted temperatures rises happen.

Saying everything and the science is settled seems too premature to me.

Regards,

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709601

Postby servodude » February 4th, 2025, 12:52 am

odysseus2000 wrote:
hiriskpaul wrote:Not really. The basic science is settled. We observe warming. The warming is caused by increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. The CO2 is increasing due to the burning of fossil fuels. All settled, despite what lemons or the likes of Trump think or don't think. There are areas of uncertainty of course, as there is with evolution. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet for example will decrease salinity in the Northern Atlantic. What will that do to ocean currents? Some say it may result in cooling in the North Atlantic rather than warming. Definitely not settled science.


All we really have is an experimental fact that we are releasing co2 into the atmosphere and that measurements of temperature show low altitude warming & high altitude cooling as expected for a greenhouse effect, along with simulations that explain the observed warming & correlate this with measured co2. This is good, but are there other factors that might be important that we are not considering and if not are the putative factors correct with regard to what will be the effect of feedback such as more water vapor if the predicted temperatures rises happen.

Saying everything and the science is settled seems too premature to me.

Regards,


Are you really saying that water vapour has not been considered as a factor in the predictions of extreme weather?
You must be very selective in your choice of what you read

hiriskpaul
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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709603

Postby hiriskpaul » February 4th, 2025, 1:29 am

odysseus2000 wrote:
hiriskpaul wrote:Not really. The basic science is settled. We observe warming. The warming is caused by increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. The CO2 is increasing due to the burning of fossil fuels. All settled, despite what lemons or the likes of Trump think or don't think. There are areas of uncertainty of course, as there is with evolution. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet for example will decrease salinity in the Northern Atlantic. What will that do to ocean currents? Some say it may result in cooling in the North Atlantic rather than warming. Definitely not settled science.


All we really have is an experimental fact that we are releasing co2 into the atmosphere and that measurements of temperature show low altitude warming & high altitude cooling as expected for a greenhouse effect, along with simulations that explain the observed warming & correlate this with measured co2. This is good, but are there other factors that might be important that we are not considering and if not are the putative factors correct with regard to what will be the effect of feedback such as more water vapor if the predicted temperatures rises happen.

Saying everything and the science is settled seems too premature to me.

Regards,

I didn't say everything was settled I said the basic science was. There are of course other factors that affect warming and for that matter, cooling, but these mechanisms and feedbacks are all well understood. Adding CO2 causes warming. Warming means the atmosphere can hold more H2O, another greenhouse gas, which it does, and that contributes to warming. Despite claims of deniers, there's nothing mysterious about H20 being a greenhouse gas or surprising to climate science, chemistry or physics. This is settled science, but as I said before, there are areas which are not settled, such as the precise impacts of reduced salination. The extent to which the oceans can continue to take up CO2 is another area. Another is the ways in which melting permafrost contributes to warming. Lots of uncertainty as it is complicated. Deniers can and do take up these uncertainties to try and muddy the water, but the basics are clear. CO2 causes warming and we are continually releasing CO2. Warming isn't going to level off as we keep adding more CO2.

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709649

Postby odysseus2000 » February 4th, 2025, 9:28 am

hiriskpaul wrote:
odysseus2000 wrote:
All we really have is an experimental fact that we are releasing co2 into the atmosphere and that measurements of temperature show low altitude warming & high altitude cooling as expected for a greenhouse effect, along with simulations that explain the observed warming & correlate this with measured co2. This is good, but are there other factors that might be important that we are not considering and if not are the putative factors correct with regard to what will be the effect of feedback such as more water vapor if the predicted temperatures rises happen.

Saying everything and the science is settled seems too premature to me.

Regards,

I didn't say everything was settled I said the basic science was. There are of course other factors that affect warming and for that matter, cooling, but these mechanisms and feedbacks are all well understood. Adding CO2 causes warming. Warming means the atmosphere can hold more H2O, another greenhouse gas, which it does, and that contributes to warming. Despite claims of deniers, there's nothing mysterious about H20 being a greenhouse gas or surprising to climate science, chemistry or physics. This is settled science, but as I said before, there are areas which are not settled, such as the precise impacts of reduced salination. The extent to which the oceans can continue to take up CO2 is another area. Another is the ways in which melting permafrost contributes to warming. Lots of uncertainty as it is complicated. Deniers can and do take up these uncertainties to try and muddy the water, but the basics are clear. CO2 causes warming and we are continually releasing CO2. Warming isn't going to level off as we keep adding more CO2.


Good arguments, but looking at the central UK weather records:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/c ... cet-series

we see peaks in warming in 1730 and in the period 1930 to 1960, followed by decline and then an increase from 1990. Similarly we see lower temperatures from 1660 to 1710, then 1740 to 1930.

Are these just statistical fluctuations or are they indicative of other climate mechanisms that are not co2 related? Can we reject such mechanisms and say that the current rise in temperature is purely due to co2 rather than a combination of co2 and other unknown mechanisms.

I agree that it should be a world priority to reduce co2 emission and in this aim the last few UK governments have done a great job with the build out of renewable energy. Where I am less convinced is whether the observed warming is entirely due to co2 emission and whether the extrapolations that are being made to predict future climate based on various climate models are likely reliable. i have often found in science that extrapolations are dangerously misleading.

Regards,

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709658

Postby JohnB » February 4th, 2025, 9:45 am

Past climate variation has been extensively researched, and links have been made to changing orbital shape and axial tilt, volcanic activity (releasing high level aerosols, and surprise, CO2!) and solar activity. Currently volcanoes and the sun are very well monitored, and their effects included in models. Orbit and tilt changes occur over longer timescales, so tend to fixed inputs to the isolation models.

For everything a layman says "but have you considered X", the answer is invariably that its been considered, and if validated, put in the models. Its not a valid tactic for derailing discussion. The claim by some that water has been forgotten is ludicrous.

hiriskpaul
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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709661

Postby hiriskpaul » February 4th, 2025, 9:58 am

odysseus2000 wrote:
hiriskpaul wrote:I didn't say everything was settled I said the basic science was. There are of course other factors that affect warming and for that matter, cooling, but these mechanisms and feedbacks are all well understood. Adding CO2 causes warming. Warming means the atmosphere can hold more H2O, another greenhouse gas, which it does, and that contributes to warming. Despite claims of deniers, there's nothing mysterious about H20 being a greenhouse gas or surprising to climate science, chemistry or physics. This is settled science, but as I said before, there are areas which are not settled, such as the precise impacts of reduced salination. The extent to which the oceans can continue to take up CO2 is another area. Another is the ways in which melting permafrost contributes to warming. Lots of uncertainty as it is complicated. Deniers can and do take up these uncertainties to try and muddy the water, but the basics are clear. CO2 causes warming and we are continually releasing CO2. Warming isn't going to level off as we keep adding more CO2.


Good arguments, but looking at the central UK weather records:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/c ... cet-series

we see peaks in warming in 1730 and in the period 1930 to 1960, followed by decline and then an increase from 1990. Similarly we see lower temperatures from 1660 to 1710, then 1740 to 1930.

Are these just statistical fluctuations or are they indicative of other climate mechanisms that are not co2 related? Can we reject such mechanisms and say that the current rise in temperature is purely due to co2 rather than a combination of co2 and other unknown mechanisms.

I agree that it should be a world priority to reduce co2 emission and in this aim the last few UK governments have done a great job with the build out of renewable energy. Where I am less convinced is whether the observed warming is entirely due to co2 emission and whether the extrapolations that are being made to predict future climate based on various climate models are likely reliable. i have often found in science that extrapolations are dangerously misleading.

Regards,

These are UK temperatures, not global. Even with global warming we can still get cool periods. Did you actually read the article? It rebuts your claims.

The "extrapolations" are not reliable. As I said the various feedbacks and secondary effects cannot be predicted accurately. We don't know precisely when volcanoes might erupt or precisely how much CO2 and cooling particulates they will dump into the atmosphere for example. Warming could proceed more slowly than central projections or more quickly. But we do know the direction of travel is upwards as CO2 accumulates.

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709677

Postby Sorcery » February 4th, 2025, 11:12 am

JohnB wrote:Past climate variation has been extensively researched, and links have been made to changing orbital shape and axial tilt, volcanic activity (releasing high level aerosols, and surprise, CO2!) and solar activity. Currently volcanoes and the sun are very well monitored, and their effects included in models. Orbit and tilt changes occur over longer timescales, so tend to fixed inputs to the isolation models.

For everything a layman says "but have you considered X", the answer is invariably that its been considered, and if validated, put in the models. Its not a valid tactic for derailing discussion. The claim by some that water has been forgotten is ludicrous.


But backtesting climate models over many years, shows they invariably run hot, compared with the actual. That is indicative that the models only have a loose correlation with the truth and perhaps there is some factors or feedbacks that they miss. Read the paper by Christie I linked to earlier or just google "models run hot" if you dare. ;-) Add climate to the beginning of the search if you want less fun.
Also this https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 7316305448 and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 7316305448 are interesting.

More seriously, clouds are mainly ignored (too small scale for models), yet we know from experience that a cloud in front of the sun in an otherwise clear sky can change temperature instantly. Cloud formation is not very well understood for example.

There is also the (likely imho) influence of living things on the weather over longer timescales. A daisy-world system model developed by Andrew Watson and James Lovelock, where a world of black daisies and white daisies compete to stabilise the temperature, for example.

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709717

Postby XFool » February 4th, 2025, 3:06 pm

It was my intention to not post again on TLF, however I couldn't help noticing (when not logged in!) Sorcery posting the most completely ridiculous and misleading nonsense on this topic (apparently without challenge - why ever not?) So...

Sorcery wrote:
odysseus2000 wrote:6. **Historical Climate Changes:**
- Past climate changes, including ice ages and warm periods, correlate more closely with changes in CO2 levels than with water vapor, which again suggests CO2 as a primary driver.

That's not my understanding,
https://cen.acs.org/articles/87/i51/Com ... 20increase.

"Which Comes First, CO2 Or The Heat?"
Stephen K. Ritter

https://cen.acs.org/articles/87/i51/Comes-First-CO2-Heat.html#

It might have helped if Sorcery had bothered to read beyond the headline and first paragraph. If he had he would have read the following text:

Global-warming skeptics have developed a set of talking points to use in their arguments as they lobby against anthropogenic global warming. Many of these points fall into the category of "climate canards." These urban legends and sometimes outright misinformation add confusion to public understanding of climate science and have been refuted by the mainstream climate research community over the years. Yet they keep popping up.

One canard is that the temperature increase signaling the end of an ice age is observed to come before an increase in carbon dioxide concentration, rather than after the increase. This observation seems to be a contradiction in global-warming theory: Does an increase in CO2 concentration drive temperature rise, or is it the other way around?

The answer is both, although intuitively many people assume that it can only be one way or the other, notes geophysicist Michael E. Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center. Mann is part of a group of climate scientists who run the website "RealClimate," which provides news and commentary on global warming and climate change to counter the blogs operated by skeptics.

Speaks for itself, I think. Well worth reading the whole article, IMO.

Sorcery wrote:Also how would we know if an increase in water vapour initiated the warming and not C02 from an ice core?

Is this a joke?

OK. Let us suppose the water vapour in the atmosphere were increasing: Why would that be?

i.e. You now need to explain why the water vapour in the atmosphere is increasing - as they aren't making water anymore and even if they were it would just be more liquid in the oceans. This, at least is very easy to explain.

Q. What causes an increase in water vapour in the atmosphere?

A. An increase in temperature of the atmosphere. ('O Level' physics)

So, Sorcery's 'Grand Explanation for Climate Change' amounts to: "The Earth is getting warmer, which is caused by the Earth's temperature increasing."

Dude, that ain't no science. That's just Magic.

Now the fun begins - wherein we find out what is really going on here. ;)

Sorcery wrote:But backtesting climate models over many years, shows they invariably run hot, compared with the actual. That is indicative that the models only have a loose correlation with the truth and perhaps there is some factors or feedbacks that they miss. Read the paper by Christie I linked to earlier or just google "models run hot" if you dare. ;-) Add climate to the beginning of the search if you want less fun.
Also this https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 7316305448 and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 7316305448 are interesting.

"interesting"? Indeed!

Why models run hot: results from an irreducibly simple climate model

Christopher Monckton, Willie W.-H. Soon, David R. Legates, William M. Briggs

Some 'well known' names in there. Actually, the paper itself is 'well known'. (Where 'well known' here means well known to those of us familiar with the topic and tropes of climate change denial and deniers)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton%2C_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley#Climate_change

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Soon#2003:_Climate_Research_controversy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Legates#Climate_change

I think we know where they are coming from...

There is no Wikipedia entry for Briggs. But there is on that very same paper:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Soon#January_2015_Monckton_et_al._paper

January 2015 Monckton et al. paper
With William M. Briggs, geography professor David Legates, and journalist and British politician Christopher Monckton, Soon co-authored a paper published by the Chinese Science Bulletin in 2015. Climatologist Gavin Schmidt described the paper as "complete trash". He said that the model used is not new, "they arbitrarily restrict its parameters and then declare all other models wrong."

Sorcery wrote:There is also the (likely imho) influence of living things on the weather over longer timescales. A daisy-world system model developed by Andrew Watson and James Lovelock, where a world of black daisies and white daisies compete to stabilise the temperature, for example.

And what on Earth has that got to do with it? Especially as the the climate is not currently stable wrt temperature. That is the whole point. :roll:


RealClimate

https://www.realclimate.org/

Climate science from climate scientists...

Accept no substitute!

Lootman
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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709724

Postby Lootman » February 4th, 2025, 3:53 pm

hiriskpaul wrote:
Lootman wrote:There might be some level of consensus about how the climate is evolving. But less so about how much that is due to man-made acts versus other factors. About how rapidly it is changing. And most certainly about what if anything we should do about that.

20% of red-state evangelists believing that humans did not evolve from primates is one thing. 42% of educated, intelligent and informed Lemons having serous doubts about the propaganda that folks like mtk62 are peddling is quite another.

Not really. The basic science is settled. We observe warming. The warming is caused by increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. The CO2 is increasing due to the burning of fossil fuels. All settled, despite what lemons or the likes of Trump think or don't think. There are areas of uncertainty of course, as there is with evolution. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet for example will decrease salinity in the Northern Atlantic. What will that do to ocean currents? Some say it may result in cooling in the North Atlantic rather than warming. Definitely not settled science.

To my mind the point of the poll was to see what percentage of this educated constituency fully accepts what you are claiming is "settled science". And it turns out that is about 60%. A majority for sure, which is hardly surprising given the avalanches of publicity and propaganda that we are constantly assaulted with. But nowhere near the level of support one might expect for something that really is "certain" and "settled".

That 42% of doubters is important because it shows there is a problem with the concerted campaign to urge us to collectively change our behaviour and/or vote for "green" policies and polticians. It shows a failing amongst those who have bought into the theory to explain themselves and convince others. And it is only a small step from there to the idea that maybe this is only 60% "settled".

In the end being "right" (or thinking or believing that you are "right") is over-rated. There is no point, value or virtue in being "right" but having nobody accept that, Put another way, I place more importance on winning than I do on being "right". And given that this topic has become as much about politics as about climate, the issue is purely academic without the ability to convert thoughts into actions. Throw in the fact that some fervent advocates have behaved very badly, and it might not be hard to see why there is push-back and a backlash against the whole climate disasterism movement.

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709738

Postby JohnB » February 4th, 2025, 4:53 pm

Temperatures about freezing at North Pole in January. Ice is melting with a +20C anomaly. I look forward to the ostriches dismissing this.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ting-point

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709750

Postby Lootman » February 4th, 2025, 6:00 pm

JohnB wrote:Temperatures about freezing at North Pole in January. Ice is melting with a +20C anomaly.

Not that unusual. The highest temperature ever recorded at the North Pole is about 70 degrees F (21 C). Make that the Arctic and there was actually a case of over 100 degrees F a few years ago.

The average summer temperature at the North Pole is about 3 C.

I won't be taking any holidays there but it is in fact a lot milder than some would think.

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709760

Postby XFool » February 4th, 2025, 6:30 pm

Lootman wrote:
JohnB wrote:Temperatures about freezing at North Pole in January. Ice is melting with a +20C anomaly.

Not that unusual. The highest temperature ever recorded at the North Pole is about 70 degrees F (21 C). Make that the Arctic and there was actually a case of over 100 degrees F a few years ago.

Yep.

Cor! I wonder why that is? Can't imagine - maybe it's because of all that "water vapour in the atmosphere"? :|

UN confirms hottest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic

https://www.livescience.com/un-confirms-arctic-hottest-temperature

Temperatures hit 100 F in this Siberian town.

''This new Arctic record is one of a series of observations reported to the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes that sound the alarm bells about our changing climate,'' Petteri Taalas, the WMO's secretary-general, said in the statement.

We have already had the: "The Earth is getting warmer, which is caused by the Earth's temperature increasing" line of 'argument'; now we seem to be being offered what, the: "climate isn't really warming, because things are getting hotter" 'argument'?

Right. I think that just about sums things up here. Don't you?

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709762

Postby Lootman » February 4th, 2025, 6:50 pm

XFool wrote:
Lootman wrote:Not that unusual. The highest temperature ever recorded at the North Pole is about 70 degrees F (21 C). Make that the Arctic and there was actually a case of over 100 degrees F a few years ago.

Yep. I wonder why that is?

My point was not so much about any change in the climate, real or imagined. But rather simply to point out to JohnB that there is nothing particularly unusual about temperatures at the North Pole being at or above freezing. It's normal and long has been. It just isn't that cold there.

Temperatures at the South Pole are another matter. it is considerably colder than the North Pole, and never reaches as high as 0 C.

The furthest north I ever visited was North Cape, Norway. It is at 71 degrees latitude, and about 1,300 miles from the North Pole. As best I recall the temperature was about 10 C. This was 40 years ago when nobody had heard of climate change. No trees but a temperate tundra, perhaps.

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709765

Postby hiriskpaul » February 4th, 2025, 7:01 pm

Lootman wrote:
hiriskpaul wrote:Not really. The basic science is settled. We observe warming. The warming is caused by increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. The CO2 is increasing due to the burning of fossil fuels. All settled, despite what lemons or the likes of Trump think or don't think. There are areas of uncertainty of course, as there is with evolution. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet for example will decrease salinity in the Northern Atlantic. What will that do to ocean currents? Some say it may result in cooling in the North Atlantic rather than warming. Definitely not settled science.

To my mind the point of the poll was to see what percentage of this educated constituency fully accepts what you are claiming is "settled science". And it turns out that is about 60%. A majority for sure, which is hardly surprising given the avalanches of publicity and propaganda that we are constantly assaulted with. But nowhere near the level of support one might expect for something that really is "certain" and "settled".

It can take a long time for settled science to become accepted by the great unwashed. This is particular so when it is very inconvenient and/or goes against powerful vested interests. It is hard to think of any science that is as disruptive to powerful vested interest and our way of life as climate change. Smoking was probably the next closest battle between science and vested interest that I can think of. Getting popular acceptance that smoking caused cancer and other diseases took a very long time and even now you will get some arguing that their grandmother smoked 50 a day until she was 105 and didn't get cancer, so that disproves the theory. Another example is the one I linked to earlier regarding Darwin's theory of evolution.

about one-in-five U.S. adults reject the basic idea that life on Earth has evolved at all. And roughly half of the U.S. adult population accepts evolutionary theory, but only as an instrument of God’s will.

There you have it. A 160 year old scientific theory, backed by overwhelming evidence, that explains the evolution of all life on Earth, but only fully accepted by 30% of US adults. Yet this is settled science.

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709767

Postby JohnB » February 4th, 2025, 7:06 pm

I don't think you can describe the LF ostriches as unwashed, they have regular dust baths, but they are very keen to continue their existing lives guilt-free. Now I may be continuing my existing, investment led, life, but I am wracked with guilt!

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709769

Postby hiriskpaul » February 4th, 2025, 7:08 pm

Lootman wrote:
JohnB wrote:Temperatures about freezing at North Pole in January. Ice is melting with a +20C anomaly.

Not that unusual. The highest temperature ever recorded at the North Pole is about 70 degrees F (21 C). Make that the Arctic and there was actually a case of over 100 degrees F a few years ago.

The average summer temperature at the North Pole is about 3 C.

I won't be taking any holidays there but it is in fact a lot milder than some would think.

Not in January.

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709773

Postby Lootman » February 4th, 2025, 7:32 pm

hiriskpaul wrote:
Lootman wrote:Not that unusual. The highest temperature ever recorded at the North Pole is about 70 degrees F (21 C). Make that the Arctic and there was actually a case of over 100 degrees F a few years ago.

The average summer temperature at the North Pole is about 3 C.

I won't be taking any holidays there but it is in fact a lot milder than some would think.

Not in January.

The point is that the Arctic, unlike the Antarctic, is not a continent. It's not really a landmass at all but rather just a frozen extension of the ocean.

So the Antarctic has a genuine continental climate, which means that it is bitterly cold all the time. But the Arctic has more of an island or maritime climate, which is much more temperate. And you ought to understand that distinction living in the UK, which also has a maritime climate. As an example we have seen 20 C in the UK in January (last year), but also -5 C in June (60 years ago).

So again, 0 C at the North Pole is no big deal.

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Re: Climate change - man made?

#709779

Postby hiriskpaul » February 4th, 2025, 7:38 pm

Lootman wrote:
hiriskpaul wrote:Not in January.

The point is that the Arctic, unlike the Antarctic, is not a continent. It's not really a landmass at all but rather just a frozen extension of the ocean.

So the Antarctic has a genuine continental climate, which means that it is bitterly cold all the time. But the Arctic has more of an island or maritime climate, which is much more temperate. And you ought to understand that distinction living in the UK, which also has a maritime climate. As an example we have seen 20 C in the UK in January (last year), but also -5 C in June (60 years ago).

So again, 0 C at the North Pole is no big deal.

It is very unusual in January. But not at all inconsistent with the prediction that as part of climate change extreme weather events will become more frequent.


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